when Austria was at its weakest and Metternich had to cozy up to the French, he kept his country free of lasting entanglements. Without bonding Austria to France by any legal alliance, for example, he tied Napoleon to him emotionally by arranging for the emperor to marry into the Austrian royal family. Keeping all of the great powers—England, France, Russia—at arm’s length, he made everything revolve around Austria, even though Austria itself was no longer a great military power.
